Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

“Don’t move, baby.” Annie crouches by him. “Stay still. I’ll go get help.”

“No, listen,” Paul says. “Listen to me. We have to go back to Venice, OK?”

“Baby, I heard what Reggie said too, but that doesn’t mean—”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” I wipe my mouth, flicking away a speck of vomit. I’m a little light-headed, and it has nothing to do with the quake.

Paul gazes at Annie, an unsettling look passing between them, which doesn’t help my state of mind.

“What does Africa mean?” I say. “ The man who made the earthquake? ”

Paul’s eyes meet mine. “Just before it all went crazy, Reggie called in. She said she knew who had caused the San Bernardino quake.”

“Wait, Paul, I’m sorry, hold on a second.” I close my eyes. “I’m pretty sure I just heard you say the word who there. Not what.”

He grimaces in pain. “Correct. She said the earthquake was caused by someone with abilities like yours. Then the comms went dead. I can’t raise her.”

Silence.

“Bullshit,” I say.

“I’m just telling you what Reggie—”

“Nope. Bullshit. I call bullshit. Bull. Shit. Your comms were faulty.”

“I heard it too,” Annie says quietly.

“Well, you fucking heard wrong. OK?”

“I don’t get it – what’s so impossible about this for you?”

“Because… because it just can’t happen. There’s no way.”

Annie looks over at Paul and Africa, as if asking them to back her up. “You can move shit with your mind. And six months ago, you met a guy who was even stronger than you. Is someone who can cause earthquakes really that much of a stretch?”

“OK, I’m pretty strong. And Jake was stronger. But neither of us could break an entire fucking city . So yeah: you heard wrong.”

I try not to talk about things being impossible , or far-fetched . I can move shit with my mind, after all. But this… no. It’s so far beyond what even I have experienced that I just can’t see it.

But, what if that’s not true? If the guys heard Reggie right, there’s someone else with abilities, and he just destroyed a city in a single morning. How am I supposed to fight that?

“Teagan, you’re not…” Paul’s been trying to get to his feet, and collapses backwards mid-sentence. I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about concussions, but I do know that not being able to stand is a pretty sure sign you have one.

Africa spits a torrent of angry, rapid-fire French, before slipping into English. “I must go to Jeannette.” He sounds desperate. “She cannot take care of herself.”

“Be cool,” Annie says.

“Ah, you tell me I must be cool, yaaw ?” His voice rises again, his eyes bugging out of his head. “What about your mother, huh? Where she, now? You not gonna go find her?”

“She can handle herself,” Annie snarls back. But she sounds unsure.

Africa’s in shock. Worse than the rest of us. But all the same, I can’t help thinking of Nic. He’d be in Inglewood, at the courthouse… maybe even still helping out in San Bernardino, because he’s the kind of person who would totally still be there two days after a quake. I pull out my phone to text him, then angrily jam it back in my pocket. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this helpless.

“Why is the guy with the concussion the only one thinking straight?” Paul is sweating, despite the chill, his shoulders set very tight. “We have to go back to Venice. Or the rest of you do, anyway.”

“Why you need me?” Africa says. “I’m the driver, yaaw ? What am I gonna drive now?”

Paul’s face is white. “Idr—Africa. Listen to me. I know you want to find your girlfriend. If my son was in town, I’d probably do the same.”

“They’re not?” I say.

“No, they’re in Arizona this week, at his grandparents. But Africa: what if you get down to Redondo, and she isn’t there?”

Redondo? Don’t they live in Venice? I push the thought aside, irritated.

Africa says nothing. Just stares, stony-faced.

“Why wouldn’t Jeannette be there?” Annie says.

“She’s not just going to stay and wait for us,” Paul says. “There’ll be emergency relief coming in – and if she got out OK, she won’t hang around waiting for us. She’ll go to wherever there’s shelter, medical attention.”

“She would wait for me!” Africa bellows.

“ Christ , Africa. Right now, we have no idea where anybody is. What if she wasn’t in Redondo today? What if she went somewhere? Or Annie – what if Sandra-May went to the store? Or had Marshawn from next door take her down to the clinic? We don’t know . They might be anywhere.”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“The office is quake-proof. Tanner and I fixed it up – we didn’t want Reggie in a situation where she couldn’t get out. It’s up to code. Her power might be down – you can fix that, get a generator up and running. There’ll be food and water, and you’ll be able to use her systems.”

“Up to code ?” I point at the runway. “That was an 8.3. That just set the code on fire and pissed on the ashes.”

I work very hard not to look in the direction of the crashed planes. There’s a rumble, and behind us, part of the control tower collapses, sending up another cloud of dust. The sirens are everywhere now.

“Are we just not gonna talk about the fact that you’re hurt?” Annie says.

“I’m fine,” Paul mutters. He tries to push himself up with his good arm, can’t do it. When he thumps back down, a horrible, pained noise hisses out of him.

“I can help with that,” I say, pointing back towards Schmidt’s plane. “He’s got some supplies.”

“He?” Annie narrows her eyes. “Who’s he?”

“Schmidt. On his plane.”

“The target?”

“Yeah. He can help.”

“You out of your damn mind?”

“What the fuck difference does it make?” I gesture at the destroyed airport, the cracked tarmac. My muscles feel loose and hot, almost liquid. Another shockwave of nausea slams into me, one I have to force back down. “I’d say mission is officially aborted.”

“Oh, so we’re just gonna go ahead and reveal ourselves to the—”

“The van.” Paul sounds like he’s trying to swallow glass. “First aid kit. There’s a sling. And there’s painkillers.”

“The plane will have better—”

“No, it won’t.” He doesn’t quite smile, but his lips twitch upwards at the corners. “They didn’t have me… packing their kit.”

“They’ll have doctors on board. Schmidt said he was going to—”

“Not for… a while yet. Chaos right now. The break will need to be set, eventually… but we have a kit here. In the van.”

“You are such a nerd,” I say. It’s meant to be an attempt at humour. On any other day, it might have actually succeeded.

“How are we even supposed to get to Venice, anyway?” Africa says, sullen.

Paul grunts. “Freeway. The 405. We get a truck—”

“The 405.” Annie puts a hand on her hip. “The most congested road in America. That’s how you wanna get to Venice?”

“Dude,” I say. “It’s bad enough at like 3 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. After a quake? We won’t make it ten feet.”

“Just listen to me. You get a truck, head out west of the airport. There’s a store we passed on the way over here.”

Annie blinks at him. “What kind of store?”

“Bikes.”

We fall silent, digesting what Paul said. I can see it – just. It would mean traffic wasn’t an issue… and once we got going, it wouldn’t take much longer to get to Venice than it would by car.